“Are you blind?”
He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. Lecount looked at him in astonishment.
“Can’t you see the brute is drunk?” he went on, more and more irritably. “Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken coachman? I won’t trust that man to drive me, for any consideration under heaven! I’m surprised you could think of it, Lecount.”
“The man has been drinking, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “It is easy to see and to smell that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober enough to walk quite straight—which he certainly does—and to sign his name in an excellent handwriting—which you may see for yourself on the Will—I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries.”
“Nothing of the sort! You’re a foreigner, Lecount; you don’t understand these people. They drink whisky from morning to-night. Whisky is the strongest spirit that’s made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the brain. I tell you, I won’t run the risk. I never was driven, and I never will be driven, by anybody but a sober man.”
“Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?”
“And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has happened? How do I know my wife may not come back to-night? How do I know her journey is not a blind to mislead me? Have you no feeling, Lecount? Can you leave me in my miserable situation—?” He sank into a chair and burst out crying over his own idea, before he had completed the expression of it in words. “Too bad!” he said, with his handkerchief over his face—“too bad!”
It was impossible not to pity him. If ever mortal was pitiable, he was the man. He had broken down at last, under the conflict of violent emotions which had been roused in him since the morning. The effort to follow Mrs. Lecount along the mazes of intricate combination through which she had steadily led the way, had upheld him while that effort lasted: the moment it was at an end, he dropped. The coachman had hastened a result—of which the coachman was far from being the cause.
“You surprise me—you distress me, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “I entreat you to compose yourself. I will stay here, if you wish it, with pleasure—I will stay here to-night, for your sake. You want rest and quiet after this dreadful day. The coachman shall be instantly sent away, Mr. Noel. I will give him a note to the landlord of the hotel, and the carriage shall come back for us to-morrow morning, with another man to drive it.”
The prospect which those words presented cheered him. He wiped his eyes, and kissed Mrs. Lecount’s hand. “Yes!” he said, faintly; “send the coachman away—and you stop here. You good creature! You excellent Lecount! Send the drunken brute away, and come back directly. We will be comfortable by the fire, Lecount—and have a nice little dinner—and try to make it like old times.” His weak voice faltered; he returned to the fire side, and melted into tears again under the pathetic influence of his own idea.